


pale as ghosts (the bad ideas and kindness remix)

by Sour_Idealist



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ancestor-Era, Dreambubbles, Gen, M/M, Ouroboros Mix Lightning Round, Pre-Scratch Alternia, Remix, in-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-03
Updated: 2012-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-28 19:17:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/311317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sour_Idealist/pseuds/Sour_Idealist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is such a thing as a balance between compassion and self-preservation.</p><p>No one has ever told either the Signless or Karkat Vantas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pale as ghosts (the bad ideas and kindness remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gumbridge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gumbridge/gifts).
  * Inspired by [grace when you turn to a ghost](https://archiveofourown.org/works/281939) by [gumbridge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gumbridge/pseuds/gumbridge). 
  * Inspired by [Red, the Blood of Angry Men](https://archiveofourown.org/works/256307) by [gumbridge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gumbridge/pseuds/gumbridge). 



The dreambubble desert is rose-lit by the start of sunset, and it makes the dunes look softer, especially where the horizon blurs into the sky. The shadows fall stretched-out and strange.

The two trolls pace across the sand with the steady strides of soldiers, although slower. The small one wears a gray cloak, red-stitched and far too big for him; the tall one is shirtless, sand settling in his brushed-back hair. They’re arguing, one all scowl and twisted mouth and glaring at the ground, the other stubborn-jawed and sad-eyed, reaching out his hand and pulling back. They switch the roles between them as they go, seamless and smooth.

\--+--

 _He's made hundreds and hundreds of one-on-one personal pleas to every sort of troll from the lowest rustblood slave working in a hoofbeast slaughterpit to Her Imperial Goddamn Fucking Condescension herself._

 _\--+--  
_

In the Land of Haze and Pulse, a boy in a shocking-scarlet shirt and a girl in a swirling fuchsia skirt stare at the horizon. She’s clutching a pitchfork, gray knuckles pale; he’s holding a sickle in both hands, struggling to keep them still.

“Have you ever fought anything before?” she asks him. He focuses on her voice, deep for a girl’s – deeper than his, still, fuckdammit – and kind of velvet, capitol accent dropping the H’s like they’re only there for decoration, which is bullshit, which he only cares about because he’d rather be pissed about fucking stupid ways to pronounce words than pissing his pants about fucking six-foot-tall ogres coming closer and closer and closer.

“Can’t be that hard,” he tells her, and thank fuck, he sounds like he means it. He’s not really used to lying. “We’re going to be fine.”

“It’s very big,” she says, looks from his sickle to the ogre to the tines of her pitchfork, back to him. He manages not to swallow, nods shrugs instead. She smiles, slow and bright. He blinks.

“I guess we’ll have to go for the feet,” she says, and turns back to the horizon, shoulders straight. He inhales, exhales, stands just a little taller as they wait.

The fight is a whirl of thick red blood and spattered fuchsia droplets, of shrieking and the flash of steel and then the crunch of the boy’s arm against the ground as he falls. The girl shouts, ear-splittingly loud and wordless, plants her makeshift weapon and vaults her way into the air. He stares up, swallowing bile, just in time to see her plunge the points of the pitchfork into the ogre’s neck and _shove,_ clutching to the handle. The ogre gurgles; she swings from the handle like it’s a toy in a lawnring, teeth glinting as she hangs. The monster staggers, ground shaking, and the boy scrabbles backwards.

“He’ll crush you, you buglelicking –” he screams, and the girl nods, swinging herself back and forth as the ogre sways, topples; the boy is just about to scream again when she flings herself free, lands while the dust is still flying up from the massive crash into the ground.

She’s smiling.

The boy has to swallow once more, twice, before he can stand; she looks at her practical lace-up shoes, her shoulders straightening as she swallows.

“Yes,” she says, perfectly audible, studying her feet. “I – I liked fighting it.” He opens his mouth, shuts it, and her head snaps up, jaw clenching. “I know what you’re thinking!” she snaps. “I swear to you, I never hurt anybody for fun. I never did!”

“Why the bucketsucking grubshot hell do you think I even _thought_ of that?” he yelps, nearly dropping his sickle; he shoves it back into his weird strife deck before that can happen again. “Sweet mother grub and every bit of fuckslime around her, do I _look_ like I think you’re some kind of monster?”

She’s shaking a little now, wrapping her arms around herself as she looks away. “Maybe,” she mumbles. “I –”

She could have gotten away with it. Her mother’s in the Parliament; sometimes people are a little more forgiving, even about things that _shouldn’t_ be forgiven without earning it. He digs his fingers into his palm for thinking it, dusts off his shirt and steps forward to wrap his arms around her. She squeaks, tensing, then breathes out – it kind of tickles against his ear – and relaxes, burying her head against his shoulder. She’s small, hard-muscled, cool against him.

“It’s okay, shitpan,” he murmurs into the thick tangled ocean of her hair. “So it’s a relief to kill one giant-ass ogre trying to stomp you into the dirt. It doesn’t make you some kind of – some kind of fucking _sadist,_ what in the hell.”

She laughs a little, trembly, and wraps her arms around him too. He works his hand through all her hair to stroke her back, gentle, careful, wondering if this is something she’s been worrying about before. “I’m your friend,” he promises. “You're okay. Don’t be a nookhead.”

She nods.

(She tells him, right before the Scratch, that he was a good leader. He doesn’t believe her, but he believes she means it.)

 _\--+--_

The executioner’s platform is a floating disc, silver, wide. The Condesce herself balances there, in the center of the light that makes every deep-fuchsia line of her suit glow bright as the gold in her pale-knuckled hands.

The Signless is standing far too close to her, dragging his guards forward; they clutch the chains and stare at each other, mouthing their confusion – he has no weapons, his arms are wrenched and weak, and yet he’s still pulling closer to the Empress.

“Don’t fucking do this,” he pleads with her, straight-backed, head high, the glow strange against the cherry stitching on the torn-up rags hanging form his shoulders. “Don’t.”

“Do you think you’re the first to beg for your life?” she asks him, rolls her eyes. She doesn’t laugh at him, at this red-eyed man who doesn’t so much as duck his head, never mind bow. “How silly.”

“Not for my life, you bucket-headed bitch,” he snaps, tugging against his chains towards her. The crowd below squeaks in horror. “You’re going to regret this for the rest of your life, don’t you understand? This is your chance, you could change all this asslicking beastshit, you could be –”

“You _dare!_ ” She raises her hand; the guard’s slap echoes louder than either of their voices. He shakes his head, dizzy, straightens to stare at her. The seconds pass. One, two, three. “Why would I?” she spits. “Why are you stupid enough to think I might?”

“Because you could be _different_!” he snarls, craning forwards. “You don’t do all this without ever fucking thinking twice about it, you aren’t heartless, you could be so much _more_!”

“I AM EVERYTHING!” Her voice echoes, crashing off the walls; the audience shrieks, the guards recoil. The Signless shakes his head, closes his eyes. She snarls, teeth glinting, spins her trident in her hands. “I. Am. Everything. I am your queen, I am _empress._ What more is there?”

“Argh!” He shrugs off the guards; they’re too shocked to catch him as he strides forward, stretches out his hands to her, well within trident-reach. She doesn’t move to threaten him. “You’re empress, yes – empress of corpses and people so grubfucking terrified of you they can barely breathe when you walk by! You could be _loved._ You could have friends, you shitpan, you could be happy, you could have some actual fucking justice and get some nooksniffing _sleep_ at night –”

“What makes you think I am _anything_ but content with my empire – _my_ empire – exactly the way it is right now? You stupid –”

“ _I know you._ ” The word he uses, one of a dozen words for _know_ , is an ancient one, ancient and absolute – it means knowing down to the bone, down to the details of a slimeless nightmare, down to fears and embarrassments and pathetic absurd wishes. It’s pale as pale. The gasping of the crowd is starting to sound like the sea.

The empress gapes.

“I know you,” he repeats. The shadows of his outstretched hands are huge against the wall, clear to the very back of the crowd, and the Empress’s face is briefly unfamiliar, soft, eyes wide and doubtful. He catches her fingers, thumb brushing along the edge of her wrist. For just a moment, her talons fit softly between his knuckles, and her battle-roughened hand is still and cool.

Then her lips curl.

“Heat the irons,” she orders, and turns away. Her fingers slip from his by inches.

He’s crying as they string him up, noiseless and unmistakable and red; somehow, none of the guards laugh, none say any of the usual things about a coward’s death. One threshcutioner quietly reaches up to wipe his face, ignoring the stains that bloom bright against his crisp white sleeve.

The empress does not trouble herself to watch as the Signless slowly dies. She does not trouble herself to leave her rooms, either, or to eat very much, but the official announcements disregard those details.

\--+--

 _We fell apart because I couldn't keep us together and then everyone died because I couldn't stop Eridan or Vriska or Gamzee and especially not Jack._

 _\--+--  
_

“Whatever, kid, if you don’t want to, you don’t want to, just shut the fuck up about it.” Jack Noir shrugs and turns away, and Karkat swallows, glares, throat hot and lips humming. Jack’s always hunched over, seems to go with his strange shining shell and the curve of his head, so it’s hard to tell if he’s curled in on himself a little more than usual. He’s watching Karkat still, out of the corners of the pale alien eye he still has.

Karkat licks his lips.

Noir grabs him by the shirt and tugs him in.

It’s almost a blackrom kiss – not that Karkat fucking knows, he’s never had a real kismesis – but it’s not quite rough enough, too much tongue and no actual way for it to hurt. Karkat shifts a little closer, more curious now, and then Jack’s hand settles over the cut on his side. His claws prickle, a little, but not nearly enough to be painful, and they slide sideways, down a little, up again – Jack is tracing the edge of the cut.

Karkat gasps.

Five minutes he’s not just gasping but moaning, pebbles in the sand digging into his bare back and he does not give a fuck, because Jack’s hand is busy doing things to Karkat’s bulge that are the most glorious things that anyone has done to him, ever, and Jack’s tongue is deadly red at the corner of his mouth. His breath is hot on Karkat’s throat, and – oh _fuck,_ whatever he just did Karkat wants him to do it again – and his eye is wider than it'd been before, and there’s something about the set of his mouth that’s maybe just a little wistful.

Karkat reaches up, twists his hands into the back of Jack’s doublet and pulls him down, presses a kiss into his mouth, all the lips and tongue Karkat can manage while he squirms and whimpers. It seems like Jack sighs just a little into his mouth, just a little. Karkat swallows hard and stretches his hand towards the carapace’s chest, wondering through the haze of _oh fuckshitpleaseyes_ about hearts and blood and if anatomy matches and –

 _Yes_ , he can feel Jack’s heartbeat thrumming against his palm, quick and clear and heavy, and Jack is gasping too, panting. Karkat spreads his fingers out, and Jack’s hand falters, stills, thumb slipping and clumsy like he’s caught off guard, and he shivers just a little and _pumps –_

 _oh God_

 _oh._

Afterward, Jack’s bulge is still hard and hot and pulsing against Karkat’s bare thigh, and Karkat grimaces. “Oh, perfect,” he mumbles, lips raw and clumsy around the words, “as usual I’m a total shitlicking moron, yes, lie there like a fucking dead bug with its guts pulled out instead of doing something grubgritting _useful_ …”

Rolling atop Jack isn’t hard at all, but he wasn’t quite expecting how it was going to feel, Jack spread out underneath him and chest and stomach bare – he’s still wearing the damn doublet, fuck, that was stupid, but at least it’s come open somewhere along the way. Karkat can see Jack gasping, could see the blood pulsing in his throat if he were a troll – can see the plates of his shell sliding under each other as it is, strangely crackable-looking. Jack's claws scratch against the dirt, and Karkat uses his own and watches Jack shake – okay, fuck, sharp is good, and remembering Jack’s mouth on his chest earlier, he leans down.

Okay, that’s definitely right.

Karkat keeps his hand moving, and Jack comes with his head thrown back, every joint of how he fits together bare and bright in the sunlight, eye closed and moaning like he’s going to die, like it’s been a long long time since anything like this. Karkat chews his own lip and watches him, remembering that heartbeat quick against his hand. He wonders what it’s like on Derse, whether it’s better or worse than Alternia. He doubts it’s very different.

 _\--+--_

Karkat lies crumpled on a tilting tower floor, sheets spilling from the bed behind him. Stones, candlesticks, bits of decoration roll and rattle against the lower wall, shadows rippling across the green-tinted gold.

He opens his eyes.

“Oh, fuck,” he hisses, fingers raking across his forehead, through his hair, as he stares. There’s crashing outside, screaming, the light shifting sicklier and sicklier by seconds. There’s a crackling sound, louder as he listens. He’s half on his feet before the wall caves in, all crunch and crack but no roaring, no sound of falling brick and stone. “Oh fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck…”

Outside the entire world is being swallowed by solid sparking green. Buildings collapse in the fringes of it, some melting, rubble dissolving into the blurring not-quite-fire before it can even hit the ground. The sky is almost hidden, the sun outdone by the endless fire, and the screaming is getting quieter but no less desperate. The air reeks – dust, hot metal, charring meat. Karkat retches, fingers scrabbling at the tile underneath him.

The figure starts as a shadow silhouetted against the chaos. Then there’s sparks of light rimming the dark patch, sputtering out and taking the shape with them, only to flash back, brighter, bigger, closer. Ragged wings bigger than Karkat himself, misshapen skull, sword, and then it’s just approaching green; a flash again, close and small, curved head, hunched shoulders, faint suggestion of an eye slashed closed.

Karkat chokes. It flickers out again, close enough to hear a sizzle and a thunderclap.

“Fucking –”

Sizzle again, the skull-shape this time, wings throbbing through the air, all buzz and shadow even as the body fills in black and shining. It's all strange spikes and ears and sniffling bristled snout, and the hands – Karkat’s mouth opens, closes; if he makes a sound, he doesn’t know, and the roaring outside swallows it. Red streaks down the fingers, over the golden ring, spatters across the tile.

“Jack?” Karkat shouts.

The monster’s head jerks, eye narrowing, nostrils flaring out. Karkat is no barkbeast whisperer, but the creature has recognition written all over it, canine jaw dropping as Karkat screams, louder, “Jack!”

He tries to stand, can’t, shaking, feet slipping across the tilting floor; he reaches up, calling, “Jack, you nooksniffer, it’s Karkat, it’s _me_ , what the hell are you doing, what happened –”

Crackle, sizzle, thunder; the monster is warping closer, sniffing, sword blinding with the green shining off the razor-edge. “Fuck, _Jack_ –” Karkat yells, arm flung over his forehead, and he swallows hard and reaches up, still struggling to stand – “Jack, for fuck’s shake, _shooosh,_ calm down, it’s Karkat, you shitpanned, slime-for-brains, _shoosh, shoosh,_ I –”

Closer, eyes narrowing, and Karkat’s still struggling to find his feet, choking, breathless. “Shoosh,” he gasps, weak and quiet, and Jack stares down, sniffling at the tiny troll like he’s a puzzle. Lightning runs across his fingers, flickers behind his ears, sparks in his eyes, outlines the sliding-together plates of his misshapen-all-over-again neck. “Shoosh,” Karkat repeats, voice cracking, reaches for Jack’s bloodsoaked stiff-clawed hand. “Sho –”

His fingers slide through empty air as the crackling roar of Jack's disappearance echoes off the walls, and he chokes. Then the heat hits him, and he stares up, scrabbles backwards as the greenness swells across the floor, devouring, dissolving foot by foot by foot.

When it hits him, it feels half like an electric shock and half like searing heat, too intense to even hurt. His eyes are closed, but the green bleeds through regardless.

When he finally wakes, out in the Veil, he’s curled around himself and shivering into the metal, bile curling at the back of his throat. His cheeks are sticky, and he scrubs the back of his hand across his eyes, digging his fingernails into his other palm.

It takes him a long moment to stand. Feferi is watching him, nose crinkled, razor teeth worrying gently against her lip; he glares, shakes his head, and carries on.

\--+--

 _One beside another, they walk._

 _\--+--  
_

“Speak up, kid,” the Signless says, his dream hand soft on Karkat’s dream shoulder. Karkat twitches, but not enough to shake him off, and glares.

“I said I fucking pailed Jack Noir, how’s that for pan-achingly stupid?” he demands. The Signless blinks, laughs, shaking his head, and ruffles Karkat’s tangled wreck of hair. Karkat ducks, biting his lip; his cheeks are just a little red, a little darker than the skin underneath the Signless’s wrist.

“You’re a kid,” the Signless says, like he’s explaining the obvious to a wriggler who can’t be expected to know. “You get a few mistakes like that. All those hormones, all that shit. Things happen, especially…” He pauses, pulls back his hand. “You say you pailed him.”

“Yeah, and it was my own shitty stupid choice.” Karkat glares at the horizon, kicks up the sand; it falls through the air, ivory-colored. “I _trusted_ him.”

The Signless reaches for Karkat’s shoulder again, squeezes gently as he can, watching the clouds swirling in the distance. “You wanna hear stupid? I tried to take pity on Her Imperious Condescension.”

Karkat stops dead, opens his mouth, closes it, repeats the process. It’s almost funny, except that when he finally speaks, he just asks “Flushed or pale?”

“Pale.” The Signless is still watching the dreambubble’s distance. “Hey, fuck me if she didn’t need it.”

It’s Karkat who starts to walk again, the Signless following, closing the extra inches in a couple strides. Karkat says, finally, “That was probably a little bit asswipingly stupid, but if it had worked –”

“Would’ve been a hell of a world.” The Signless sighs, scrubs his fingers through his hair to dislodge some of the sand that’s gotten in. “Funny thing is, I meant it.”

“Why?”

It’s a long moment before he answers. “She was lonely.” Step, step, step, feet padding in the sand. “And she could have been different. She was one of us, too, before.”

Karkat chews his lip, studying the middle distance, clearly seeing none of it at all. “Yeah, well, I’ve heard of stupider reasons to pity someone.”

He reaches for the Signless’s shoulder, realizes he can’t reach and wraps his fingers around his ancestor’s forearm, squeezing softly. The Signless looks down, and smiles.


End file.
